Factbox - Australia Super Rugby Conference

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Factbox on the teams in Super Rugby’s Australian Conference (in order of position last season):

NEW SOUTH WALES WARATAHS (Sydney)

Coach: Daryl Gibson (fourth year)

Captain: Michael Hooper

Last year’s finish: Third (W-9, D-1, L-6)

Best performance: Champions (2014)

World Cup watch: Utility back Adam Ashley-Cooper is back from Europe and seeking to become only the second Wallaby to play in four World Cups. A standout of the Wallabies’ unlikely run to the 2015 final in England, he broke back into Michael Cheika’s squad for the season-ending tour of Europe last year where he played his 117th test against Italy in Padova.

MELBOURNE REBELS

Coach: Dave Wessels (second year)

Captain: Dane Haylett-Petty

Last year’s finish: Ninth (W-7, L-9)

Best performance: Ninth, 2018

World Cup watch: Queensland Reds discard Quade Cooper spent last season playing third tier club rugby in Brisbane and remains the most polarising player in Australia, but his name always pops up around World Cup time. The nation’s chronic lack of flyhalves and Cheika’s pledge to pick anyone who shows good form in Super Rugby gives 70-test Cooper a realistic chance of making Japan, particularly if his revived halves partnership with old Queensland team mate Will Genia proves a major success.

World Cup watch: Prop James Slipper, another one of Brad Thorn’s cast-offs at the Queensland Reds, is fit, happy and keen for redemption after battling injury, depression and drug problems. The 29-year-old played the last of his 86 caps in 2016 but was at both the 2011 and 2015 World Cups, and has always been highly rated by Cheika.

World Cup watch: Young tighthead prop Taniela Tupou, nicknamed the ‘Tongan Thor’, played in 10 of the Wallabies’ 13 tests in 2018 and was named the team’s rookie of the year.

The 135-kg 22-year-old is also deceptively quick for his size and skilled with ball in hand but will need to improve his scrummaging to dislodge the likes of Sekope Kepu and Allan Alaalatoa from the starting front row.

World Cup watch: Flyhalf Yu Tamura is in line for his second World Cup with Jamie Joseph’s Japan but will have to battle New Zealander Hayden Parker, who scored 136 points last season, for a starting spot in the Sunwolves.

How coach Tony Brown juggles the pair may reflect whether Japanese rugby sees the Sunwolves as a standalone side or a pathway for the national team.